


A Frog Newsie

by distractionpie



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - The Frog Prince Fusion, Fic amnesty, M/M, permanently incomplete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8956780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: David is a humble farm-boy, living a boring life, until a chance encounter at the pond draws him into a whirl of adventure, magic, and leads him to the big city.PERMANENTLY INCOMPLETE.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This work is about 75% complete, getting patchier towards the end, and mostly unedited.  
> I started writing it in 2014 and got a good way into it before realising I'd gotten knotted up in the fantasy plot. I set it aside hoping that I'd be able to come back to it in time with a clearer head and get it finished, but that never manifested and I've drifted from this fandom. I think it's been long enough now that that's unlikely to change.  
> Despite that, this was a labour of love at the time and I think there's enough written that it makes sense, so it seemed a shame for it to languish forever un-shared on my hard-drive.

Once upon a time there was a King who was a wicked sorcerer. He ruled over the land with no care for the welfare of the people, only for increasing his own wealth and power. He was so evil that his own daughter, who had the potential to be a powerful sorceress in her own right, had fled across the border in order to escape his rule. However, the farmers and labourers of the kingdom lacked the princess’s wealth. They could neither afford to flee, nor would they be welcomed in the neighbouring lands, and instead had to suffer under the evil king. Even on the outskirts of the kingdom, far from the city from which the king ruled, life was harsh…

 

*

 

The sun was low in the sky as David made his way back to his village. While his back was appreciating the day’s break from farm labour, his feet were sore and his spirits low. Whatever it was that had struck his village’s crops, causing them to wilt and then to wither over the course of just a few nights, had also struck villages for miles around. Even the oldest and wisest of farmers could think of no solution that might protect the few fields that had yet to be ravaged by the disease. Tonight he would be bringing nothing but bad news to his family and his village, both faced with a rapidly shrinking harvest, and an almost as rapidly approaching visit from the tax collectors.

 

He reached the slightly scummy pond, marking the mile and a half distance to the village, and sat at its edge, tugging off his socks and boots so that he could ease his aching feet and freshen up a little before making the last of his journey home. The water, while not quite cool, was still a relief, and he shut his eyes and allowed himself a moment to stop wondering how the village was going to feed itself through the winter, never mind pay the King’s taxes, and instead enjoyed the silence.

 

“Ribbit!”

 

David glanced over at the bullfrog lurking in the reeds by his elbow. It was an impressive specimen, and while a frog could hardly solve his family’s problems, it could certainly entertain Les a while. So, with the skill obtained from his own childhood adventures in collecting whatever small creatures he could sneak home in his pockets, he reached out and grabbed the frog with both hands.

 

“Hey!” came a croaky voice, and David looked around, wondering who could have approached without him hearing their footsteps.

 

“Who do you think you are, goin’ around grabbin’ a guy who’s just minding his own business and looking for some grub what ain’t flies,” continued the voice. It sounded strange, almost ill, the sort of voice that would have David’s mother shaking her head and saying things like, ‘A frog in their throat, you mark my words, that’s a sign of the cold if ever there was one.’

 

David stood up and looked around. There was nobody visible, and the trees around the pond were narrow enough that only a young child could hide behind them, and it wasn’t a young child’s voice he’d heard.

 

“Well are ya gonna put me down or what?”

 

David shook his head, trying to clear away whatever it was in his ears that was making it seem like the sound was coming from his hands. “Frogs can’t talk,” he reminded himself.

 

“Well you ain’t much good at listening, are ya?”

 

He looked down at the frog, which was staring back, and reminded himself that frogs didn’t have human facial expressions. Then again, he also remembered reading once about frogs in far off lands which could release chemicals from their skin that could cause hallucinations. Of course, that was far away, and he was pretty sure that those frogs also looked different, but it didn’t hurt to be sure. He put the frog down and dipped his hands into the pond, scrubbing at them.

 

“Home…” he muttered to himself. That was what was important right now.

 

He pulled his socks and boots back on and firmly ignored the voice saying, “Home? You know how to get out of these woods?” Now that he’d let go of the frog and washed his hands whatever toxin he’d picked up was sure to wear off soon.

 

He ignored the voice and the frog’s croaking as he set off on the rest of the journey. He had an important message to deliver to his father and he should never have stopped.

 

*

 

Everyone was pretending not to be worried about the implications of the news David had brought back as his mother laid the table for the late dinner she’d been keeping warm while they waited for his return. Even Les, who couldn’t conceptualise things not working out in the end, had clearly picked up on the atmosphere and was unusually subdued. The soup was watery, and with David having failed to find a way to save the crops, it was only going to get more so as his mother worked to make the most of what little food was in their echoing larder.

 

Les was narrating the events of the game he’d been playing with friends that afternoon, his chatter a calming babble over the tension that David had brought, when there was a knock at the door. David was sent to answer it but when he pulled it open there was no-one there.

 

As he closed the door he heard a croak and noticed a frog sat on the step. He rolled his eyes. Perhaps he’d caught the sun on his walk, because there was no way the frog could look familiar, other than in the sense that all frogs looked alike.

 

He walked back into the kitchen and shrugged at his parents’ questioning looks.

 

“There was nobody there,” he said, “Maybe it was a trick of the wind.”

 

“But there hasn’t been a breeze all day,” Sarah argued, just as there was another bang at the door.

 

“Well perhaps one’s started,” David replied, knowing as he did so that his argument barely made sense. Although it still made more sense than the idea that there was a frog knocking at the door. Frogs didn’t even have hands.

 

“Well anyway,” said his mother, “somebody needs to clean up. Les, go out and fetch some water, please.”

 

 Les nodded and darted away. Their father sighed.

 

“Well at least there’s plenty of that. We shan’t have to worry about what to thin the soup with.”

 

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” their mother insisted, “Perhaps David can pack a bag and try some further afield villages, and somebody is bound to know how to solve this.”

 

“Hopefully before more people get caught up in the idea of this being a curse,” Sarah added. “I mean, who’d want to curse our little village?”

 

“Crops have failed before,” David’s father stated, “We got through then and we’ll get through now.”

 

He opened his mouth to say something more, but was cut off when Les came racing in, no bucket in sight.

 

“Look what I found!” he cried, thrusting out his hands to show them a frog.

 

“Les, it’s just a frog,” said Sarah, “you’ve found plenty.”

 

“This one talks,” Les replied, “It told me it followed David back from the pond and it was cursed by a wizard and it’s going to kiss a princess if it doesn’t get squashed.”

 

Sarah rolled her eyes and even their father looked like he might laugh when David heard the same voice from the pond.

 

“That’s right kiddo. One kiss from the princess and I’ll be back walking instead of hopping.”

 

For one moment it looked like Sarah was going to drop the dish she was holding, before she took a deep breath and sat down.

 

“Well…” said their father, raising his eyebrows at David, “You didn’t mention bringing a friend home.”

 

David felt his cheeks heat. “I didn’t, I… Some frogs can cause hallucinations if you touch them.”

 

“Well then, Les best put him down,” their father replied. Les looked petulant as he placed the frog on the table.

 

“I found him really, Davey was gonna leave him outside. It was him who was knocking at the door when Davey blamed the wind. It’s not even windy.”

 

“Well of course I didn’t let it in, it’s a frog,” David retorted. “Frogs can’t talk, they don’t have the right anatomy, I dissected one once.”

 

“Dissected?” the frog croaked.

 

“Cut up,” Sarah clarified, at which the frog hopped closer to Les, out of David’s reach.

 

“Nobody is getting cut up,” said their mother shakily, “I shan’t have anybody saying that the Jacobs’ family have poor hospitality. Have you eaten?”

 

She addressed the last remark at the frog, confirming to David that it wasn’t just Les and him hearing the frog talk. And he’d never read anything about airborne toxins.

 

“No ma’am,” the frog croaked, “I don’t really have the arms for cooking, and I can’t say flies make for good eating.”

 

“Right,” said their mother, “Les, go fetch some soup for our guest. Perhaps a shallow bowl would be best.”

 

Les leapt up to obey and David gaped at his parents.

 

“Frogs can’t talk,” he insisted, somewhat hopelessly.

 

“No,” his father agreed, “But there’s always been stories of the King turning people into things and perhaps not doing it all the way.”

 

The frog croaked. “People are starving in the city. But the king don’t like complaining. I guess I got a little too noisy with it, cos next thing I know I’m being taken to see his royal highness hisself, and then I’m waking up in a forest somewhere and hopping. Now I always wanted to get out of the city, but I’d meant to do it on my own legs.”

 

Their father nodded, as if this was a perfectly reasonable explanation. “Well if you were human, then I’m guess you’ve got a name…”

 

“Jack, sir,” the frog answered.

 

“What was all that Les was saying about kissing the princess?” Sarah asked.

 

“Oh,” the frog made a strange noise, perhaps the frog equivalent of a laugh. “Well in the city some people say it takes a magic kiss to turn you back. And everybody knows that the princess is the only person with enough magic to rival the king, so it stands to reason that a kiss from the princess is what’ll fix this.”

 

Les returned then, with the soup. He placed the dish next to the frog, who leapt up onto the rim and began to consume it, darting tongue wrapping around the pieces of vegetable and lamb and eating them.

 

“People say the princess has fled to the kingdom across the river,” David’s mother said.

 

The frog gulped down his mouthful. “Right. Only I know everywhere in the city, but out of it, I just keep going in circles.” He looked over at David, “It was only by following your tracks that I got out of the woods.”

 

“Well maybe David could help you out again,” their father said, to David’s utter astonishment.

 

“How?” he asked.

 

“Well we did talk about you going to talk to people in some of the more faraway villages. Going up to the river might yield some results. Jack doesn’t look like he’d take much to carry, and he’d certainly get there faster being carried than on those legs.”

 

“But…” David protested.

 

His mother smiled, and said, “I’ll pack some things up for you. You can set out in the morning. I’m sure we all want things sorted out sooner rather than later. Sarah would you mind taking that dish and then fetching some water. You can try your luck at finding another talking frog, since it seems both my other children have the knack.”

 

The frog, Jack, had finished the soup and was licking at the bowl, but at this he leapt off the rim, and allowed Sarah to take the bowl away.

 

Les, who had been practically bouncing with excited tension as the conversation took place, seized the opportunity this lull presented.

 

“I collect frogs sometimes,” he told Jack. “But I never cut them up.”

 

“Well that’s a relief. You gonna make sure your brother doesn’t do that same?”

 

“Yeah!” Les cried.

 

David knew he ought to step in before Les went and got his little wooden sword and started threatening to battle him in defence of Jack. “Well none of the frogs I cut up went around knocking on our door and making dinner conversation.”

 

“He was lost and you left him in the woods,” Les commented, as Sarah returned.

 

“You know most frogs would probably appreciate being left alone,” Sarah noted. “And since it’s getting late, and Jack has apparently been hopping for miles he probably would quite like you to leave him alone and go to bed Les.”

 

Les frowned. “Where is Jack gonna sleep?”

 

“I’ve been in the woods a couple of days, and it’s pretty crowded in the city too,” Jack offered, “I ain’t picky.”

 

“Well, David and Les are in one bed, and you aren’t going to take up much space, so how about all the boys bunk up together?”

 

Les grinned and David pulled a face. While he had no overall issue with frogs, he’d brought home almost as many small and often slimy creatures as a child as Les currently did, the thought of one in his bed was a little off-putting. Even more so when suggested by his mother, who when he was a child was always quick to remind him to leave whatever animal he’d managed to catch that day ‘outside, Davey, for goodness sakes.’

 

Les had already picked up Jack and was carrying him through to the bedroom, telling him that he could share Les’ pillow and asking about what it was like to sleep in the woods.

 

David sighed.

 

*

 

David could feel the warmth of the sun’s rays on his face as he woke. There were birds singing outside the window and the sound of a frog croaking, unusual for the morning. As the noise gradually filtered through to his brain, the croaking became words and David turned to press his face into his pillow and groaned. He’d been hoping that part of yesterday would turn out to have been a dream; honestly, the whole day was something he could have done without.

 

Jack was telling Les a story, something about the city and a robber and a rooftop chase. It sounded more like the kind of games Les played with his friends than something that had actually happened. David thought it was highly unlikely the events had occurred as Jack was describing them, but Les was sat at the foot of the bed eagerly asking Jack, “What next? And then what?”

 

In the interests of hopefully preventing Les from later trying to re-enact these adventures, David pushed himself up to sit against the headboard and cut in.

 

“What sort of rubbish are you filling his head with?” he asked Jack. He was not yet awake enough to be annoyed with the fact he was having a conversation with a frog.

 

“A robber tried to take some newspapers from Jack’s friend and Jack chased him down and caught him and took the papers back!”

 

“I was asking Jack not you,” David pointed out, before adding incredulously, “All that over a newspaper?”

 

Jack hopped up the bed to rest on the nightstand next to David. “Not _a_ newspaper. Thirty. We’re newsies, we gotta sell our papes, not let ‘em got stolen.”

 

David nodded. In villages like his there was no need for newspapers, gossip spread faster than mud in a pigpen, but a city would need a more organised system of distribution.

 

There was a knock at the door, and a moment later David’s mother stuck her head in. “Boys, it’s time to- oh you’re all awake already, what a pleasant surprise. Well if you can get yourselves out of bed, Sarah is laying out breakfast.”

 

Les leapt off the bed, holding out a hand for Jack to hop onto, before racing off in search of food, leaving David to wash in the pail and dress.

 

When he entered the kitchen Les was cutting up slices of apple into frog sized pieces and their mother was fussing.

 

“I’m afraid it’s not much,” she said.

               

Jack gave a strange croaking which resembled a laugh. “That’s fine ma’am. You don’t get fruit this good in the city.”

 

She nodded, and turned to David.

 

“David, can you go and fetch your father in before he gets started working and misses a meal.”

 

David nodded, grabbing a piece of bread and ducking out of the cramped kitchen and walk down to the edge of the fields. As anticipated his father was there, along with many of the other village men, inspecting the crops.

 

“How are they?” he asked.

 

His father shook his head. “The rot is spreading,” he said, waving David in for a closer look. “I’m afraid if we don’t find a solution soon we might lose the whole harvest. And then I don’t know what we’ll eat, let alone pay taxes with.”

 

“Do you really think we’ll still have to pay, even with all of the crops failing?” David asked.

 

His father sighed. “You remember what Jack said about people starving in the city and the king not caring. There’s not much chance he’ll be of a different opinion about us.”

 

David frowned. “But why? What’s the point of it all?”

 

His father laughed. “Always with the hard questions, son. Now since you’re out here I’m guessing that your mother sent you to fetch me in.”

 

“That’s right,” David said, realising he’d let his errand slip his mind. “Breakfast is waiting.”

 

“Why can’t I go?” Les was asking their mother as they returned to the kitchen. David helped himself to some more bread. “It’s not dangerous – you’re letting David go.”

 

“It’s going to be a very long walk, Les, you’d get tired,” Sarah interjected, perhaps foolishly, and Les’ reaction was to fold his arms and look even more determined.

 

“Hey, hey!” Jack said, from where he’d been set down on the table. “Now with me and Davey going off to find her royal highness, who’s gonna stay here and look after your mom and your pop and your sister?”

 

Les looked confused. “I…”

 

“That’s right,” Jack interjected, “you are.”

 

A slow smile spread over Les’ face, although David suspected that such an obvious trick wouldn’t have worked for anybody other than Jack, who Les had taken an undeniable shine to.

 

Their mother leapt upon the opportunity presented by Les’ ponderous silence to direct David over to the bag of food she’d packed for the journey.

 

“This ought to be enough to last you a week,” she said, “I don’t expect you to be gone any longer than that. If you can’t find the princess for Jack in that time then you’ll have to turn back and try again later, okay?”

 

David nodded. “We should probably set out soon, we don’t want to waste any more daylight than we have done already.”

 

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, hugging him. “You and Jack stay safe.”

 

“Of course,” David answered.

 

Sarah hugged him next, and then his father patted his shoulder. He ruffled Les’ hair, and then looked at Jack, trying to figure out the best way to carry him.

 

“I think I wanna sit on your shoulder. That okay by you Dave?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, lifting Jack up and then placing him on the shoulder of his jacket.

 

“Right,” he said, determined to get out of there before Les decided he wasn’t so okay with being left behind. “Well… see you in a few days.”

 

*

 

They walked for most of the morning, passing through two of the villages that David had visited the previous day. The people nodded and waved to David, then stared quizzically at the frog balanced on his shoulder before politely ignoring it. Jack maintained a fairly steady flow of chatter, mostly about the differences between the city and the countryside. While some of the information about the city would probably be interesting if David ever decided to visit it, mostly he tuned it out - much like he did Les’ nattering about games.

 

From what David had heard, the city wasn’t really that far: a day and a half west on the road towards the river, and then perhaps another day going north east, on account of the road going around the woods instead of through them. He’d just never seen the point. If the city was full of people, what room would there be for the son of farmer, whose only education came a vociferous habit for reading, and not any sort of schooling? For all that travellers passing through the village talked hopefully about the city, and Jack’s stories of chases and city adventures sounded interesting, even exciting to the point that the only explanation for them was exaggeration if they weren’t just plain made up, there was just no way David could make sense of leaving his family and his home behind for a life that seemed so chancy. Anyway, for all that Jack made the city seem fascinating, he’d also said that he’d always wanted to leave it.

 

Finally, when the sun was high in the sky and the sweat was starting to soak into the collar of his shirt, Jack stopped his rambling to say that he was hungry. As David was pretty sure that if he didn’t eat soon his stomach was going to start making embarrassing noises, he acquiesced. He could see a small corpse of trees nearby, so he walked on to that and sat down with his back against a tree stump and began to unpack some food his mother had given them. There was quite a bit of it, but it would take several days to make their trip and then get back to his home so despite the temptation, he’d need to make it last.

 

Jack hopped down from his shoulder. “I think I need to stretch my legs. I’m getting awfully stiff sitting up there. Do you think frogs can get cramp?”

 

David shrugged. He supposed it was possible, although he’d always associated cramp with swimming after eating, which wasn’t something frogs ever seemed to have any difficulty with. He was a little concerned by the idea of Jack hopping around in the grass while David was also walking about. Although David was obviously going to try to look where he was walking Jack’s green skin made for effective camouflage, and stepping on him didn’t seem out of the question.

 

He was pondering this as he unwrapped the cheese.

 

“Hey, Jack,” he said, gesturing to the stump he was leaning against. “Hop up here, will you?”

 

“Alright,” said Jack warily.

 

David folded the red cheesecloth in half, and then wrapped it around Jack and tied a knot in it, attempting to strike a balance between getting it tight enough to stay on without choking Jack, but also not inhibiting his movements. The resulting image was a bit surreal, but at least it made it easier to see where Jack was.

 

“What the heck, Dave?” Jack asked. “Was my lack of clothing offending your country sensibilities? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed but frogs don’t normally wear clothes.”

 

David flicked at him irritably. “You’re the one that wants to go hopping around in the grass. This way I’ll see the cloth and not have to worry about stepping on you if I get up.”

 

David put his cheese between two slices of bread and ate it like that, watching the red cloth that he'd tied to Jack move through the grass. He was halfway through it when Jack returned, and David sat breaking him off frog sized pieces of bread and cheese until the cheese ran out.

 

They rested a while longer, but eventually David scooped Jack back up and got to his feet.

 

“We movin’ again?”

 

“If we ever want to actually get anywhere, yes.”

 

Jack laughed.

 

Soon after they’d started walking again they passed the fork at which the previous day David had turned off to make his circular route, and began arriving at new homesteads and villages, ones that David had only visited a few times before. They stopped wherever there were people to ask about the crops, but since many others were also experiencing the same problem, if David wasn’t quick enough in asking if they could do anything to help, they quite often asked him first. And so they trudged on for most of the afternoon, David indulging his curiosity by asking Jack a few questions about the city, although mostly the impression that he got was that it was loud, dirty and utterly chaotic. And as far as Jack could tell, food was growing increasingly scarce there.

 

“That makes sense,” David pointed out. “I suppose you could keep chickens or something in a city, but all your crops and everything that comes from large livestock must be coming from the farms. And now the farms aren’t making as much they aren’t going to have much spare to sell. Or enough to pay when the king’s men come to take their share.”

 

“How come they get a share?” Jack asked. “They didn’t do none of the work.”

 

 “It’s all the king’s land that we’re farming,” David pointed out. “My father says he’s entitled to take as much as he likes, he remembers one time when he was a boy they took nearly everything and a whole lot of people starved.”

 

“Well that ain’t right,” Jack said. “What does one guy want with all that food anyway?”

 

David shrugged.

 

They both fell silent for a while. David had always supposed that the food was taken to be given to the people in the city, but the way Jack talked strongly suggested otherwise. If the city dwellers were getting any of the food they were still paying for it, the money was just going to the king instead of the farms.

 

Eventually they got to talking again, and David got the impression that Jack wasn’t good at staying quiet for long. Apparently Jack had questions about living in the country, although David couldn’t imagine why, as nothing that went on in his village was even half as interesting as the stories Jack told about the city. He managed to bore Jack off of the topic eventually, and Jack began to recount stories of a theatre owner he knew. The closest David had ever come to theatre was a group of actors who’d stayed the night in the village several years back, and in return for the hospitality they’d received offered to put on a simplified rendition of the show they were taking to the city. He mentioned this to Jack, who asked him to details of the performance, and then in turn recounted various theatre performances he’d attended, some of which sounded far more exciting than the one David had witnessed.

 

The afternoon passed quickly while they were telling stories. When night fell they made camp near a pond, which allowed David to wash off some of the dust and sweat of the day’s walk and Jack to take a swim. They ate a quick supper of more bread, this time accompanied by a small jar of homemade meat paste, and then Jack hopped over to the bank of the pond to rest, and David lay down a little way away and let sleep claim him.

 

*

 

David woke at dawn the next morning and ate a quick breakfast, before deciding against rousing Jack, instead placing the frog in his pocket. While he wanted to make best use of the daylight, he wasn’t yet sufficiently roused to be able to cope with Jack’s croaky chatter.

 

When Jack finally did wake, he noted with pleasure that being wrapped in the damp cloth improved his sleep vastly, something which apparently made him even more chatty than usual. Still, some of his stories were quite funny and certainly vastly different from anything that David had encountered in his small village.

 

They passed a few people along the way, including an old man walking in the opposite direction who took one look at Jack and said, “Off to talk to the princess then?”

 

“How did you…” David began and the man laughed.

 

“You’re walkin’ about with a frog on your shoulder boy, that means either magic or madness,” the man said, “And it ain’t mannerly to assume the latter.”

 

“You know where to find the princess?” Jack asked.

 

The old man shrugged. “Only that she lives in the kingdom across the river. Some people say they found her real easy, others say they looked for a long time but never saw a trace. I reckon she’s got magic keepin’ away the wrong sort of visitors, cause otherwise his majesty woulda had her dragged back to the castle a long time ago.”

 

They walked on for an hour or so more, and David was just starting to consider stopping for a little more food when he spotted the river off in the distance, spanned by a stone bridge.

 

It was Jack who saw that there was a small guard booth next to the bridge, as well as half a dozen guards.

 

“Maybe they’ll let us cross,” David pointed out. “Just because there’s guards doesn’t mean that they’re guarding against everyone, right?”

 

“If there was one guard you might be right Dave, but six?” Jack said. “No they don’t want people on that bridge, I betcha.”

 

“Well then what do we do?”

 

“You’ve read a lot, you must have read something about getting across a guarded bridge,” croaked Jack.

 

David frowned, trying to recall anything he’d read about strategy or bridges. After a moment he sighed. “No. Not unless you’ve somehow got a couple of goats about your person.”

 

“Goats?” Jack repeated, sounding like he was considering the implications and thinking of something completely different from what David was.

 

David shook his head. “Never mind.”

 

“I suppose if you put me down I could sneak by ‘em and try an’ swim it,” Jack suggested.

 

David looked at the river, with its broad channel and rapid flow and shook his head. He was pretty sure even real frogs would struggle with such a fast current, and he didn’t know how much of a natural frog’s swimming ability Jack had gained when he was transformed.

 

“Well… I guess we might as well give askin’ a shot,” Jack conceded.

 

They approached the bridge and the two foremost guards immediately laid hands on the hilts of their swords, lending not inconsiderable credence to Jack’s theory that their crossing the bridge would be an unwelcome action.

 

“Turn back,” the guard nearest the front said. “Crossing is forbidden.”

 

“Well we gotta cross, so it looks like we’re gonna have to hang about until we can come to some sort of arrangement. Seems like as good a place as any to stop for lunch. What’s the eatin’ like around here?”

 

The guards looked at each other. “Rations get delivered once a week,” said the smallest guard.

 

“Any good?” Jack asked. The guards glanced at each other and shrugged.

 

“It’s food.”

 

“Care to share?” Jack asked.

 

The guard scoffed. “No chance. There’s barely enough to go around as it is.”

 

“Ah,” said Jack, “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we got our own supplies then.” He looked across to David. “Here, we’ve still got the pie your ma made, ain’t we?”

 

David nodded, lifting it out of his pack and unwrapping it. The guards stared at it.

 

“Can’t beat sharing a good pie with you pals,” Jack remarked, “Shame it’s just me and you to eat it, eh, Davey?”

 

David frowned, but then looked back over at the way the guards were watching him handle the food. “Oh… oh yeah.  I mean it’s a pretty big pie?”

 

“Right!” replied Jack, “I don’t know how we’re gonna manage it all.”  


David fought the urge to roll his eyes. Having seen the way Jack ate over the last few days he was pretty confident that Jack could eat the whole damn pie himself – David was pretty sure Jack was consuming more than his body mass in food most days, if not most meals.

 

“Well maybe we could help you out,” said the smallest guard.

 

“I dunno,” Jack said. “I always got taught never to do somethin’ for nothin’.”

 

There was a long pause as Jack and the smallest guard stared each other down.

 

“We ain’t taking breaks to eat our lunches no more, on account of not gettin’ any lunches,” the guard observed.

 

Jack’s tongue flicked out and made a strange flicking noise that David suspected was the frog equivalent of tutting. “Well that just ain’t right…”

 

The guard nodded. “Now we’re supposed to take turns on break, on account of not leavin’ the bridge unguarded. But I reckons we’s all so hungry that if we did gets some food we’d not be able to wait our turn.”

 

“A fella shouldn’t be let to get so hungry,” Jack said. “Here, Dave, how about we give these gents the food outta your pack.”

 

The guard who’d been talking with Jack, clearly the leader, kept his face impassive, but the others visibly straightened up and stared at David. The attention made David a little uncomfortable, even knowing that it was for the food he was carrying rather than him. He handed the pie off to the leader who took it, and then lifted the bundle of food from his pack and handed that over too. The guards made for guard booth with such speed that David half expected magic was involved.

 

He looked over at Jack. “I can’t believe that worked.”

 

“I seen enough hungry guys in the city to know how to spot the signs, and a guy’ll do a lot to keep his belly full,” Jack observed. “But we’d best get moving before they finish that pie and change their minds.

 

David thought about pointing out that nobody could eat a whole pie that fast, then he remembered how quickly Jack ate, and picked Jack back up from the rock he was sat on and set off across the bridge.

 

*

 

They walked for a few hours more before darkness finally fell and they had to stop or risk losing the path.

 

David set Jack down on the ground just at the edge of the path and then rolled his jacket up for a pillow and lay down next to him. He knew they should probably rest somewhere they would be a little less easily spotted by passers-by, but David didn’t know these woods well enough to want to go wandering off into the trees in the dark.

 

“So now we’re in the right sorta area how’re we gonna find this princess?” Jack asked.

 

David shrugged. Technically he’d only agreed to get Jack this far, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to help him look a little before going back and breaking it to his family that he still hadn’t found a way to save the crops. “I guess we keep following the trail until we find people.”

 

“And then what?”

 

David frowned. “I don’t know Jack. Then we’ll ask them if they know where we can find the princess. Can we just sleep Jack?”

 

“Sleep?” Jack exclaimed. “But we gotta come up with a plan. It ain’t even that late, you really so tired?”

 

“Yes,” David said. “I’ve been walking for the past two days while you’ve been getting carried, remember?”

 

There was a pause.

 

“Alright,” Jack said, “But c’mon, we really sleeping without getting somethin’ to eat first?”

 

“Well you gave away all of our food,” David pointed out.

 

“Negotiated away,” Jack corrected. “So you didn’t manage to sneak any back?”

 

David scowled. “And when was I supposed to do that? I don’t know if you noticed but you kind of sprung that plan on me, and they were all watching.”

 

“Still, sleepin’ on an empty stomach…”

 

“Frogs eat insects,” David snapped, “And there’s plenty of those around here.”

 

David was pretty sure that if frogs were capable of it Jack would be rolling his eyes right about now. “Yeah, but I ain’t really a frog. I mean I guess I can eat bugs, but I reckon so can you, it’s a question of wanting to.”

 

David turned his head to stare Jack down. “Look, there’s bound to be edible plants around here. But we’re not going to have any luck finding them now it’s getting dark, so food will have to wait until morning. Who knows, maybe we’ll find the princess right away and she’ll give us food.”

 

“And you can sleep on an empty stomach?” Jack probed.

 

David sighed and turned away from Jack. “Food’s not my first concern right now.” He suspected he’d have to get used to sleeping on an empty stomach soon when all the crops died out, but that wasn’t a thought that was particularly conducive to sleep.

 

“You saying you ain’t hungry?” Jack asked.

 

“Well not if you stop talking about food, I won’t be,” David said, and glared up at the stars. “You know, I read once that in some countries they eat frogs.”

 

Jack croaked loudly and indignantly. David felt a rush of mean satisfaction.

 

“Eating me would still be eating a person you know, except I got less meat on my bones. You wouldn’t do that, would ya Dave? And just when we’re getting to be pals. I met your ma, and I don’t reckon she raised you to be the kind of guy to eat his pals.”

 

David laughed. “Well anyway, I’m not that hungry. You know the sooner we get to sleep the sooner we can be up and go find your princess.”

 

Jack muttered something which sounded a lot like, “Time don’t work like that,” but he hopped onto David’s jacket and settled down.

 

*

 

David woke the next morning to the sound of Jack’s voice telling him that they’d slept late. Indeed, when he opened his eyes the sun was already high in the sky. He sat up and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the discomfort of two successive nights of sleeping on the ground. Even if fortune favoured them, he was still two days walk, and so at least one more night outdoors, from home.

 

“Alright… alright…” he grumbled. “I’m up.”

 

“Well let’s get moving,” Jack said, with uncharacteristic impatience. David guessed that Jack was experiencing the same dull ache of hunger in his stomach, and that was what had gotten him into such a mood.

 

He climbed to his feet, placing Jack in his increasingly familiar spot on David’s shoulder and set out. Honestly he was pretty hopeful himself that they’d find people who could help them sooner rather than later. This journey was growing tiresome.

 

They hadn’t been walking long when David spotted a thin column of smoke rising from the trees. David pointed it out and turned his head to better look at Jack. “I did say we should ask any people we meet if they knew were we could find the princess. And it doesn’t look like it’s so far off the path that we couldn’t find our way back,” he said.

 

It didn't take long to reach the house which was the source of the smoke, although going was a little harder than their earlier travelling because they'd branched off of the path and David was having to push through shrubbery and brambles, scratching himself on thorns several times.

 

This meant he felt a spike of annoyance when they reached the small cottage and there was a clear path leading away from it, pointing in a direction that suggested that they'd have found that path if they'd continued along their earlier route.

 

They walked up to the door, and David paused.

 

"C'mon," Jack said. "You ain't gonna make me knock are ya? Because I ain't honestly sure how to do it without hands."

 

David reached up and flicked Jack in irritation, and then knocked. There was a pause and then a girl, or perhaps a young woman, who looked a little older than Sarah, opened the door. She looked him up and down with a brazenly assessing look before her gaze stopped on Jack, but with none of the incredulity that he’d seen in the villages they’d passed through.

 

“Why do I have a feeling this is going to have something to do with magic,” she said. “I suppose you ought to come in.”

 

She led them through to a small but uncluttered parlour, and sat down in a high backed chair, waving David and Jack in the direction of an intricately embroidered couch. David placed Jack on the end table and sat down.

 

“If you know we’re lookin’ for you to do magic then I’m guessin’ you’re the princess?” Jack said.

 

The woman - the princess – nodded, and David sat up a little straighter. While his mother had never even thought to suggest that David might one day find himself in the company of royalty she’d always been very clear on how he ought to behave in the presence of important people, even if the closest to an important person his village ever saw was the travelling doctor who came through once or twice a year and dispensed medicines. He hadn’t even thought to ask her name, clearly spending days traipsing around the woods with Jack had had more of an effect on him than he realised.

 

“Well,” she said, “I suppose you’d better explain what it is that you want from me.” She nodded to Jack. “I’m guessing it had something to do with your being a frog.”

 

“Well, your highness, you see…” David began, but Jack cut him off.

 

“Your father turned me into a frog, so we came here to see if you wouldn’t mind kissin’ me,” Jack explained.

 

The princess’s eyebrows shot up. “You want me to what?”

 

“Well everybody says that if you kiss me I’ll turn back into a human,” Jack elaborated. “So if you wouldn’t mind… Unless that’s not how it works, in which case I suppose I’d be hopin’ for some advice, on account of the fact you’re supposed to be one of the most powerful people in the world.”

 

The princess’s eyebrows stayed raised. “It’s true that a kiss is usually involved,” she said, “But you think I should be the one to administer it?”

 

“Can you or can’t you?” David asked, impatiently.

 

The princess gave a ladylike shrug. “Well the idea that it takes a kiss from me to turn him back is a bit of an… oversimplification. Undoing spells cast by others, particularly by somebody as powerful as my father, is very tricky. I suppose it would might work, but I’m not going to kiss a frog.”

 

“I ain’t really a frog,” Jack argued.

 

“So you say… for all I know you could be a frog enchanted into thinking you’re human,” the princess said snootily, “I’ve heard stories about that.”

 

“That’s just stories,” Jack pointed out. “I don’t wanna be rude, your highness, but it would be real great if you could do this.”

 

“I… it’s just… me kissing you to turn you back,” she said, looking from David to Jack. “It’s hardly proper, that sort of magic isn’t meant to be done between strangers.”

 

“Oh for goodness sake!” David blurted out, frustrated.

 

“Oh don’t. I’d like to see you find anybody willing to kiss a random frog,” she complained, and then added, “Ha! You find somebody who would do it and then I would.”

 

David, impatient, looked from the princess to Jack and considered that idea.

 

He lifted Jack up, and, crinkling his nose at the strangeness of the act, pressed his lips firmly against Jack’s clammy mouth, and held them there for a beat just so the princess couldn’t say he hadn’t done it properly, before pulling back and setting him down. He turned back to the princess.

 

“There,” he said, “Now, you made a bargain.”

 

He was about to say more when he was cut off by a smooth voice from where he’d left Jack.

 

"Well that was... Unexpected…"

 

David turned around. Where he’d left Jack now stood a brown-haired youth, a little taller than he was, clutching the red cloth he’d tied around Jack and looking down at himself bemusedly.

 

“Jack?” he said, tentatively.

 

The youth grinned at David, a bright expression that a frog’s face could never have achieved. “Yeah,” he said. “Will ya look at that?”

 

“Will you look at that...” David echoed. It was strange how the idea of Jack being human hadn’t felt real up till this point.

 

Jack was fidgeting with the red cloth.

 

“I can put that back in my pack if you want,” David offered.

 

Jack shook his head. “Nah, it ain’t like you’ve still got the cheese to put in it, right?”

 

“I guess not,” David said.

 

“Well then I suppose you don’t mind if I keep a-hold of it?”

 

David nodded, and then turned his attention back over to the princess, who was staring at them both and looking perplexed.

 

“What is it?” he asked.

 

“Oh nothing,” she said, “It’s just that usually with that sort of spell it can’t be a kiss from just any old person.”

 

“Hey,” said Jack, his grin fading some. “Dave here ain’t just any old person, he got me all the way here and…”

 

“Well anyway, it looks like you don’t need me after all,” the princess said, with a hint of a laugh.

 

“Well…” Jack wheedled.

 

She shook her head. “You got your kiss and you’re human again, it seems I wasn’t needed.”

 

Jack laughed. “Yeah, guess the rumours weren’t quite right. I don’t suppose you’re secretly a princess Davey?”

 

David flushed and Jack laughed harder.

 

“But seriously your highness,” Jack said.

 

“Oh you might as well call me Katherine,” she cut in.

 

“But seriously, Katherine,” Jack amended, looking, David felt, unduly pleased with himself. “I wound up a frog because of the king, and apparently you’re the only person who can match him in power, so I reckon you could still come in pretty useful if you’d be willing to help us out.”

 

“The thing about magic is…” Katherine began before coming to an abrupt halt.

 

David flushed at the fact his stomach had made a sound loud enough to be audible to the room.

 

Katherine laughed. “Hungry?”

 

“We had to trade our food to get across the bridge, your highness,” David explained, flustered.

 

“She said to call her Katherine,” Jack corrected him. “But Dave’s right,” he added, turning to Katherine, “We ain’t ate anything since yesterday morning.

 

Katherine stood up, “Well then I’m sure I can find something,” she said, “Excuse me one moment.” She stepped out of the room and David could hear the faint clattering of crockery. He took the opportunity to make a proper assessment of how Jack looked now he no longer appeared to be a frog.

 

His hair was longer than most of the boys from David’s village, but he was wearing clothes not dissimilar from David’s, a pinstriped waistcoat over a loose shirt, faded to a dull grey-green - clearly that was one thing the city didn’t do so differently. David noticed that Jack had taken the strip of cheesecloth and wrapped it around his neck, knotting it loosely as if it were a tie.

 

“Do you really think you can take down the king?” David asked.

 

Jack shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Gotta be better than things are now, right.”

 

David shrugged. “I guess you might as well try.

 

“Yeah I…” Jack paused, “We may as well try. You are comin’, ain’t you Dave?”

 

David hesitated. This was getting further and further from the task his father had initially set him, but then again, he’d begun to realise that he wasn’t going to find a solution to whatever had struck the crops by going around and asking at villages who were all suffering the same problem. He wasn’t sure how much use he could actually be in coming up with a plot to replace the king, let alone enacting one, but if they somehow did manage to put Katherine in charge she’d probably be more lenient about taking tax from starving farms than her father would.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I’m coming.”

 

A moment later, Katherine returned and placed a plate full of cuts of meat and cheese in front of them.

 

“So what is it that you actually want me to do?” Katherine said.

 

Jack stopped with a slice of pork halfway to his mouth. “Well if you could just go an’ magic your father off the throne, it’d make life easier for everybody.”

 

Katherine shook her head. “Magic doesn’t work like that. I don’t have the power he does.”

 

Jack frowned. “How does all this magic stuff work anyway? Cos Davey here turned me back from bein’ a frog without having any sort of magic, so if you’ve got as much power as people say you have surely it should be cakewalk. You father can’t be that tough.”

 

“Actually, doing big magic isn’t about the raw power of the individual so much as where they can draw it from. My father has a whole kingdom giving their magic to him, which is a lot of power,” Katherine explained, as she poured herself a cup of tea. “Everyone has the same amount of low level magic, it’s just that it’s not enough to do much with and most people can’t access it anyway.” She shot a strange look over at David. He wondered if she was judging his table manners, although given the way that Jack was eating, David wouldn’t have considered himself the obvious target for that sort of disdain.

 

“But if the people are opposed to the king surely they wouldn’t want him to use their magic,” David said, perplexed.

 

Katherine sipped her tea. “Not wanting _him_ to have it isn’t enough; somebody has to be using the power, it can’t just sit there.”

 

“Welmph sss…” Jack stopped and swallowed. “Well why’s it gotta be him?” he continued. “I mean if he can take it, why not somebody else?”

 

“Magic isn’t something that can be learned out of a book,” Katherine explained, “and most people can’t just decide to cast a spell and have it happen. It’s not about changing the world so much as pointing it in the right direction. That’s why I said there was no guarantee I could turn you back. And natural aptitude goes a long way.”

 

“Well I don’t know about attitude,” Jack replied, “But you’re good at magic, surely you could…”

 

“I know what you’re thinking, and I can’t,” Katherine cut in. “Trust me, I’ve tried. I don’t have the power to match him.”

 

David frowned. “But didn’t you just say he drew the power from the people… surely you could do the same?”

 

A look of consternation flickered across Katherine’s brow. “I… he’s already laid claim to that though. I can’t take power he’s already taking.”

 

There was a long pause.

 

“Exactly how much control to do people have over the power they’ve got,” David asked.

 

Katherine gave him a puzzled look. “Well generally not much. Although of course there are always surprises. Why do you ask?”

 

“Well, you’ve said that people can’t use their power themselves because they aren’t strong enough on their own. And you’ve said that you can’t take the power away from your father. But well, could the people influence it enough so the power was going straight to you from them?” David asked.

 

“I…” Katherine looked contemplative. “I’m not sure. It certainly… well it doesn’t sound impossible, but people would have to be doing it deliberately. It wouldn’t have to be the whole city, but it couldn’t be a small number either.

 

“There’s a lotta people in the city that ain’t so happy with your father,” Jack said. “I reckon it wouldn’t be to hard to get ‘em helpin’. How many do ya need?”

 

“I… thousands,” Katherine said. “Even if there are that many people who want my father ousted, how could we possibly organise them?”

 

To David’s surprise, Jack laughed.

 

“People learn what to think from the news,” Jack explained. “And no matter who does the writin’, the people who really decide what news is is newsies, and I know for sure they’re on our side.”

 

 

*

 

Now they had an idea, it seemed that Jack and Katherine were willing to overlook figuring out a more detailed strategy in favour of making their way to the city and working from there.

 

“Well, it’s early yet, if we set out now we should still have most of a day of light,” Katherine declared. “We might even make it to the city before tomorrow evening.”

 

A little under an hour passed between Katherine agreeing to their mission and them actually setting out. Katherine had packed up supplies for the walk to the city, based on her estimation that the journey shouldn’t take more than two days. David had been expecting Katherine to distribute most of what needed carrying between Jack and him - somebody as highborn as she was would certainly be used to having other people do the heavy lifting for her, but she’d made the packs up about evenly and talked about the walk like it would be a pleasant trip, not an awful lot more tiring than anything David would have thought a princess would deal with normally. Sarah would like her.

 

Katherine just didn’t match up to what books and tax collectors had led David to believe royalty were like. It was somehow easier to think of her as just Katherine. It was strange to think of the girl nodding and putting aside blankets when Jack remarked that David hadn’t been cold at night  as somebody who’d grown up in a castle with servants and finery. His mother would probably be astonished that David was even mentally addressing royalty so informally. Although she’d be startled he was in the presence of royalty at all. David was pretty bemused by the situation himself, but Jack seemed to be handling everything with ease, and it seemed much easier to follow his lead than to get caught up worrying about conforming to some sort of courtly etiquette he’d never been taught.

 

Neither Katherine nor Jack had mentioned supplies for a trip back. David wasn’t sure if it was because they felt it would be easy to resupply in the city, or if Katherine was sufficiently confident that she could take the city from her father that they didn’t need to make plans to leave. David supposed that he could see why the idea might appeal to them. Jack considered the city home, and for all that Katherine had been staying across the border and away from her father for several years, it was clear from the way she talked that she felt the same way. Neither of them had left the city of their own free will, despite Jack’s claims that he’d wanted to.

                                                 

But David was getting ahead of himself. They still had a long way to go before returning would need any serious consideration. Anyway, David could feel his boots rubbing against his feet. And although the discomfort was providing something of a distraction from Jack and Katherine’s conversation, he was still picking up enough to know that the plan once they arrived in the city would likely involve more walking. Already facing the looming certainty of blisters, it was probably best to put off thinking about the long walk home until it was necessary.

 

In the interests of efficiency, Jack, with Katherine’s support, declared that they might as well walk through lunch. David contemplated that it was alright for people who hadn’t been walking for days already, but thought he understood their impatience. Instead Katherine passed around bread and they ate as they walked.

 

A little while after they’d finished eating, Katherine turned to David.

 

“Are you looking forward to seeing the city, David?” she asked.

 

David shrugged. “I suppose so, but it’s all a bit of a mystery to me, so I suppose I can’t say until we get there.” He paused before adding, “From the sounds of it, it’s plenty familiar to you though. I suppose you’ll both be glad to be back?”

 

“Well, it’ll be nice to be the one who knows where he’s going for once, instead of having to follow all the time,” Jack said with a laugh. “And I reckon the guys at the lodgin’ house will be happy enough to have me back, even if they’ll probably sulk that I ain’t got a story for them about kissin’ a princess.” He grinned over at David. “I ain’t sure they’d find this version quite so interestin’.”

 

David laughed, but he couldn’t help but wonder what Jack thought of the kiss. For David it had felt much like what he’d have imagined kissing a frog to be like, if kissing a frog had been something that had crossed his mind before that day. David wasn’t sure how much feeling frogs had in their mouths, or if being kissed by David while he was in frog form even felt like being kissed for Jack.  He could feel his cheeks heat at the idea that Jack knew what it felt like to be kissed by David, especially when that knowledge was one-sided.

 

“Well at least you got turned back, so I’m sure your friends will be grateful for that,” Katherine pointed out.

 

“Hey, now I ain’t objectin’ to how things turned out,” Jack protested, “It’s nice to be walkin’ upright again, not to mention that I got turned back with all of my clothes, and I weren’t so certain if it worked like that, to be frank with ya,” Jack said with a laugh.

 

David kept his gaze on the horizon, trying not to consider how extremely awkward it would have been for Jack to end up standing naked in Katherine’s parlour. Although she’d surprised him with how informal she was willing to be, he suspected that an unexpectedly naked man would have pushed things too far.

 

“Making things disappear by magic is impossible,” Katherine explained. “You can change everything about a thing, but you can’t stop it existing. Although I’m sure if it were possible then my father would. But magic sometimes reacts strangely to people trying to make things happen that are against nature.”

 

“That makes a lot of sense,” David said, and glanced over a Jack. “You were doing stuff that was impossible for a frog.”

 

Jack rolled his eyes, “No duh. Who’s ever heard of a talking frog?”

 

“Or a frog eating as much as you did,” David added.

 

*

 

They walked for a few more hours before making camp, and by the time they stopped David knew that his feet were blistered.

 

Katherine offered around a packet of cold roast chicken and a loaf of bread, and all of them ate like it had been far longer than a few hours since their last meal.

 

When they’d finished Katherine declared that they’d need to build a fire. David glanced over at Jack perplexed, but Jack just nodded to Katherine and asked her what they could do to help.

 

Jack and David spent about ten minutes gathering sticks before Katherine called them back and directed them to a circle of stones where she wanted them to lay the fire. They followed her instructions but when they were finished David looked at the circle of stones Katherine had laid out, and the small pile of sticks they’d assembled within it, and raised his eyebrows. “That’s a little small if you want the fire to last.”

 

Katherine smiled and flicked her index finger in the direction of the pile of kindling. It sparked, and then flared upwards, burning higher and brighter than made sense for the size of its base. It was the first bit of magic that David had actually seen Katherine do, which he felt excused the fact it hadn’t occurred to him that she could just magically augment the fire. It was certainly an easier method of getting one lit than all of the fiddling about with sticks or flint that would have been required otherwise.

 

“Having something to work with is easier than magic-ing one up from scratch, but I don’t need much,” Katherine said. She picked up her pack, and gestured to the other side of the fire. “I’m going to sleep over there. Don’t worry about watching the fire, the magic should keep it under control and it’ll die down naturally.”

 

David nodded, watching her walk away. She settled a little distance away, far enough for propriety he supposed.

 

He looked to his left. Jack was staring at him. David brushed at the creases of his clothes and turned his gaze back to stare into the fire.

 

“I know how to make a fire,” he explained, “but it’s been warm the last few nights and I didn’t think we needed one.”

 

Jack laughed but David really didn’t think the fire was necessary. He’d been warm enough, and now with the fire burning so close he was beginning to feel uncomfortably flushed.

 

“An’ I ain’t saying different,” Jack said. “You look like the heat’s gettin’ to ya, you wanna move away some?”

 

David nodded, a stepped a few paces back, until he couldn’t feel the warmth of the flames so directly.

 

Jack followed him over, and then sat on the ground, tugging David down to join him.

 

“I’s guessing her ladyship ain’t had much experience in sleepin’ out under the stars.”

 

David nodded and lay back, looking up at the sky. “They’re bright tonight. The stars, I mean.”

 

Jack lay down as well. “You know you might be right, though I noticed them the last few nights too. You can’t ever see ‘em so good in the city. Too much smoke from all the chimneys.”

 

David tried to picture it, so many houses and how close together the building must be for their chimneys to even begin to block out the stars. “The city sounds like an interesting place.”

 

“Ha, interestin’,” Jack said. “Well that’s a word for it I suppose. Think I like all these open fields better though. Don’t know why folks’d want to be building cities for.”

 

David shrugged. “Space is all well and good, but I can see how people would get sick of having not much else.”

 

Jack shook his head. “No, give me a night like this over the chaos of the city any time. Fresh air, good food, good company – what else does a fella need?”

 

David couldn’t think of any counter to that point, and so they slipped into a companionable silence, and then into sleep.

 

*

 

David woke abruptly to the feel of water landing on his right eyelid and then his forehead. He opened his eyes and the clear view he and Jack had enjoyed last night when they'd been watching the stars had been replaced by dark grey clouds. On the other side of the fire, he could see Katherine rising.

 

Jack, however, was still snoring softly. David leaned over and shook Jack's shoulder, first slowly and then more roughly when Jack just murmured and shifted away.

 

"Jack!" he shouted finally and Jack opened his eyes blearily.

 

"Davey?" he groaned.

 

"How can you sleep in this rain?" David asked

 

"Rain?" Jack echoed, then he sat up, shaking his head a little. "It's raining. We should get out of the rain."

 

David rolled his eyes. Apparently Jack was even worse in the morning as a human than he had been as a frog. He left Jack where he was, and helped Kathrine gather up the things they’d removed from their packs the previous evening. Then he returned to Jack and dragged him to his feet, giving him a small shove to start him moving.

 

“Alright, alright,” Jack grumbled, “I’m walkin’.”

 

*

 

The first part of their walk, staying to the side of the road where the trees offered a little shelter from the elements, was unpleasant. But once the rain stopped, the weather turned out to be the best they’d experienced since before David set out on that first information-gathering trip, on which he’d met Jack. It was another bright day, especially as the clouds cleared, but the rain seemed to have washed away the oppressive heat that had dogged the earlier parts of their journey. Instead it was comfortably mild and pleasantly entertaining as Jack kept attempting to identify the various wild plants they passed and birds flying overhead, then David would correct him, causing Jack to throw his hands up in good natured exasperation and ask for Katherine’s aid, despite Katherine’s confession that although she’d been living in the country, she’d bought all of her produce from farms and so had learnt very little about plants or animals herself.

 

Even the fun of the conversation wasn’t enough to distract David from his weariness and his aching body though, so he was relieved when Jack stopped short and cried, "Look!” pointing to a grey smudge on the horizon.

 

"The city!" Katherine cried.

 

"We should be there before sundown," Jack said.

 

"Good," Katherine replied. "Hopefully that means we'll be sleeping in proper beds.”

 

Jack shrugged. "I guess it ain't impossible. But there's a lot more people than beds in the city."

 

"Well yes," Katherine acknowledged. "But I can pay."

 

Jack laughed. “I guess there’s that. I reckon if you can afford to pay you can get pretty much anything.”

 

*

 

As they drew closer it became more obvious to David just how high the buildings of the city were. Most of the barns in the village had a loft, and there were one or two houses which had a real second floor, but some of the buildings in the city looked to be ten floors or more.

 

“Whatcha staring for Dave?” Jack asked, “We ain’t far now, you can take a break when we get there if you need to, but not now.”

 

David cleared his throat and picked up his feet again – he hadn’t noticed that he’d stopped walking. “I’ve never seen the city before,” he reminded Jack. “It’s… I guess I didn’t realise how big it would be.”

 

“Really? When you said it was a mystery did you mean you’ve never been at all?” Katherine asked. “I thought you just meant you weren’t familiar with it.”

 

David shook his head, feeling a little foolish.

 

Jack clapped him on the back. “Oh just you wait until we get close enough that you can see how crowded it is. It oughta be three times bigger to comfortably fit all its people. I mean, seein’ the size of all them villages we went through, I bet you never been any place with more than a couple a’ hundred people, you’ll be in for a shock.”  


This revelation that David was so unfamiliar with the city which they both called home prompted Katherine and Jack to start comparing their experiences in the city. David at first braced himself for listening to very dull conversation, full of references to places he'd never seen and events he'd never heard of. But he'd forgotten to take into account the vast divide between Katherine’s and Jack's statuses, and accordingly, their experiences. Their spirited debating of their experiences served as good entertainment, and the arguments taught David far more about the city than lecturing ever could.

 

They were still going strong when they finally arrived at the city walls. Jack gave a lazy salute to one of the guardsmen as they passed through the main gate and, two streets later, grabbed David by the sleeve as they were enveloped by the biggest crowd of people that David had ever seen in his life.

 

“Alright there, Dave?” Jack teased. David laughed uncertainly. “I guess it’s a bit much if you’re used to your little village,” he said, “I reckon first things first, we gotta find us a place.”

 

Katherine agreed, claiming that she knew a hotel only a few streets away, and beckoning them to follow her through the crowd.

 

It was strange being boxed in by so many people, but they moved though the crowds with surprising ease. David kept close on Jack’s heels and Jack seemed to have a sense for the flow of people that allowed him to find gaps and slip through the crowd as if they were barely there.

 

Katherine led them through to a less crowded street and pointed out the hotel she’d meant, declaring it the best place to try first. David looked up doubtfully at the towering building and the uniformed man standing by the door, and when he glanced over at Jack he was staring at it with equal scepticism.

 

Katherine, undaunted, led them up the steps, and swept past the doorman, completely ignoring his attempt to throw out a hand to stop them, pointing at Jack and David and saying firmly, “They’re with me.”

 

She strode up to the front desk. “Good afternoon,” she said, sounding far more regal than she had done during their journey. “Three rooms, please.”

 

The man at the desk took one look at them, and in David’s opinion particularly at himself, grimy with the dirt of days more walking than Katherine or Jack, and shook his head, saying that they had no room for them.

 

Katherine thanked them for their time, and led them into to the next building on the street.

 

And then the next.

 

And then onto the next street.

 

Evening fell.

 

They were met with disinterested dismissals, apologetic explanations that places were booked out, and even some tentative suggestions of where else they could try, but the longer they spent searching the more it became apparent that Jack’s assertion that you could get anything in the city if you could pay for it was an inaccurate one.

 

"Urgh," Katherine said. "How can everywhere be full?"

 

"Well if we can get you a place, me and Dave can go try the place I stayed before. It's only that Mr Kloppman, who runs the joint, he lets his boys get away with a lot, but I don't know that he'd stretch to lettin' girls in."

 

“Well let’s try one more first,” Katherine decided. “It’ll be far easier in the morning if we don’t have to meet up from different parts of the city.”

 

The approached the final building on the street, somewhat shabbier than the last few places that they’d tried, although still clean and smart looking.

 

Some of the smartness had been worn away from Katherine’s introductions, the corners of her mouth weren’t coming up quite so high when she smiled, but she still entered with an air of confident expectation that made David glad that she was with them. He was quite sure that neither he nor Jack would be able to get the sort of business-like people they kept encountering at front desks to treat them with half as much respect as was being offered to Katherine, even though nobody had seemed to recognise her as royalty.

 

“Good evening,” she said, “Have you got a room available?”

 

“Maybe,” the proprietor said, look them over critically, before focusing back on Katherine. “You married to either of these?” He said, gesturing at Jack and David with a dubious air.

 

Katherine looked a little startled, before answering in the negative.

 

“Well I got two rooms, one bed in each,” the man explained. “But I ain’t letting one of them to an unmarried girl sharing with either of youse two, it doesn’t look good, you know? This is a respectable establishment.”

 

“No problem,” Jack laughed, “Katherine can have one room, and me and Davey can bunk up. Sharin’ ain’t a problem.”

 

David nodded. His blisters ached and his legs were sore from walking, all he wanted by that point was to not be standing up, and he wasn’t feeling picky about the circumstances.

 

They were offered a quick supper of some sort of broth with a meat David thought might be lamb, before retiring to their rooms, the boys on the first floor, and Katherine, fittingly, above them.

 

It was a small room, but clean, with plain white sheets and a clean jug of water next to the basin.

 

David eyed the bed. "It's pretty warm in here. I reckon if I take the blankets off the bed then I can set them up on the floor as a bedroll.”

 

Jack laughed. "The tiredness is getting to ya' Dave; I bunked up with other boys in beds a lot smaller than this at the lodging house sometimes. Heck, you me and Les all bunked up in a bed smaller than this at your place."

 

"You were a frog then," David pointed out.

 

"So?"

 

David shrugged. He felt tense at the thought of sharing the bed with Jack, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why. It didn’t seem logical that Jack’s form should make such a significant difference, when it was an act that Jack had rightly pointed out they had already performed several times.

 

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, and Jack grinned, unduly triumphant, and began untying the cheesecloth from around his neck.

 

David removed his jacket and shirt, placing them on the table next to the basin, leaving him only in his undershirt and trousers, and settled on the nearside of the bed, causing Jack to huff before taking the side nearest the window.

 

“You tired, Dave?” Jack remarked.

 

David laughed a little. “Tired enough that I’m not going to comment on you leaving your clothes in a heap on the floor.”

 

“We got big days ahead,” Jack observed.

 

“So for once on this trip stop nattering and let me sleep like a normal human being would,” David joked. Jack snorted but settled down, until he made no more noise than the quiet sighs of in- and exhalations. David turned on his side, his back to Jack, and tried to slow his mind down. The unfamiliar presence of Jack next him was no match for the physical exhaustion of four days on the road, and sleep came quickly.

 

*

 

There was a weight across David’s chest when he woke. He shoved at it but the pressure only increased. After a few minutes of half-awake struggle he begrudgingly opened his eyes and remembered where he was and realised what was trapping him.

 

Jack, bathed in the morning sunlight, has shifted across the bed during the night, and it was his flung out arm weighing down on David’s chest.

 

Jack’s eyelids twitched, and then he gave several slow blinks before opening them fully, and suddenly David was very aware of how close they lay. “It’s morning,” he blurted out, as if the sunlight streaming in didn’t make that fact obvious.

 

“Mornin’” Jack drawled sleepily.

 

David let his eyes shift to the window behind Jack. "We should get up. I think we slept longer than we meant to. Katherine will be waiting."

 

“I suppose,” Jack said.

 

There was a long pause.

 

“Well?” David said.

 

“Well what?” Jack replied. “You ain’t movin’ none either.”

 

David flushed, and pushed Jack’s arm off of him, realising that he could do that a lot easier than he’d be able to argue Jack into moving first.

 

He stumbled as he attempted to stand, saved from the ground only back Jack grabbing the back of his undershirt and pulling him so as to redirect his fall onto the bed.

 

“Woah, steady there Dave…” Jack laughed.

 

“I’m not a horse,” David grumbled, getting to his feet a little more carefully this time, and going over to where he’d left his clothes.

 

Jack sat up and held his hands high in surrender. “Course you ain’t, the fact I spent a couple o’ days using you get to get about ain’t relevant.”

 

David swatted half-heartedly at Jack, who dodged away, grinning.

 

“You okay though, Dave?” Jack said, as he slipped out of bed and grabbed his own shirt.

 

David nodded, the realised the gesture had probably been obscured as he’d been pulling on his shirt. “Just sore, I’m used to being on my feet, but not quite so much walking.”

 

Jack frowned at him. “I suppose you could rest up here, if you needed to. I reckon me and Katherine can get things started on our own if needs be.

 

David hesitated only for a moment. Yes he was tired, and unlike Jack and Katherine had no real reason to be so invested in this battle, but he’d come this far and it made him uneasy to think of them going off to enact their plans without him.

 

“I’ll come,” he said, “I want to see more of the city. I didn’t come this far to sit here and rest while the two of you did all the work.”

 

Jack grinned. “C’mon then,” he said. “I betcha Katherine’s already waiting at breakfast.”

 

David remembered how alert Katherine had been within minutes of being woken up by the rain the previous morning and shook his head. “No bet, she’s clearly a morning person.”

 

Jack laughed, “Well I heard a fella say once that it takes all sorts.”

 

They made their way down to the same room they’d had their supper in, and sure enough Katherine was sat at a table with an already cleared plate in front of her, sipping from a mug of coffee.

 

“Mornin’,” said Jack, walking across to the room to acquire his own mug of coffee.

 

“So we gonna try and find some of the guys I know?” Jack said.

 

“Actually, there’s some people I’ll need to speak to too,” said Katherine. “Perhaps we can spilt up and do both at once.”

 

Jack nodded as he passed a second mug back to David. “How about it, Dave? You wanna go with Katherine, or you gonna stick with me.”

 

“I’ll go with you,” David answered. He felt strangely at ease with Katherine, but that was possibly because Jack seemed so indifferent to her status it was hard not to follow his lead. He was pretty certain that the sort of people Katherine would be going to speak with would also be rich, powerful sort of people, and the thought of tagging along for that put him ill at ease.

 

“Sure thing,” Jack replied, and then they all tucked into their breakfast. After all that walking there was really no more planning left to do. After coffee David felt a lot more optimistic about his intentions as they left the inn, Katherine going right up the main street in search of the people she needed to speak to and Jack leading David left and in and out of alleyways, with an air of confidence.

 

Now David was refreshed he was more alert to the sights smells sounds of the city, he tried to figure out how Jack manoeuvred his way through crowds. For David the crush of people, closed in by towering buildings was strange and he kept finding himself tripping over items left in the street and knocking into other pedestrians. In the end Jack grabbed a hold of his shirt so that David was pulled along the path that Jack somehow created in the throng. At one point Jack spent several minutes leading David up and back down the same broad street, scanning the crowds, before finally sighing and guiding David yet further into the maze of the city.

 

Finally they arrived in crowded square, facing onto a building that was lower and broader than the others David had seen so far in the city. Jack picked up his pace, dragging David across the square until he came to a half in front of a boy who might have been about their age hawking a stack of newspapers.

 

The boy thrust a paper in David’s direction, then looked at Jack, performed a double take, and promptly dropped the paper he’d been trying to hand to David.

 

“Holy… Jack!” the boy said. “You’re back!”

 

Jack laughed. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easy, Race.”

 

The boy was still gawking. “I gotta be honest with ya Jack, we’s all thought Pultizer’d finished you. Only reason there wasn’t a funeral is ‘cause we didn’t wanna have one without Crutchy and… well…”

 

“Yeah, where is Crutchy?” Jack cut in. “I went to where he’d usually be at, but I didn’t see him. He find a new spot or what?”

 

Race averted his eyes. “Well…” he said, “Things got a bit… tense, after you didn’t come back from the castle. There was some shoutin’ and some fightin’ and you know, Crutchy can’t run away so good as the rest of us…”

 

Jack’s face fell. “…the bulls got him, didn’t they?”

 

“Bulls?” David asked. From what he’d seen of the city so far, it didn’t seem like much of a place to keep livestock.

 

“Yeah, bulls,” Jack said. Then he looked over at David, whose confusion was apparently more obvious than he’d intended it to be.  “Police,” he clarified, a hint of amusement flickering back into his face. “Though I guess a place as small as your village gets by just fine without ‘em.” Normally David would be annoyed to be laughed at, but it suited Jack better than the sorrow that had been on his face previously.

 

Jack was right, in a village of less than a hundred people there wasn’t much need for law enforcement. People looked out for one another most of the time, and when they didn’t, well, they settled it amongst themselves. “I’ve read about police,” he offered, and both Jack and Race laughed. David felt his face heat a little. Jack laughing at him was one thing, but a stranger… He suddenly felt rather ignorant for knowing so little about the city, even though under normal circumstances his family could hardly have spared him for the days needed to make the trip.

 

"Look, Race,” Jack said, “While I been gone I ain’t given up on going against Pulitzer, and now I know he’s got Crutchy I definitely ain’t. And now we got a better plan than just yellin’ at him. You reckon you could help get a message to as many guys as possible?"

 

Racetrack shrugged. "What's the message? Cause I can tell people, but they ain’t gonna pass it on if it’s dumb."

 

Jack nodded. "It’s gonna sound strange, but we wanna try and get as many people as possible supporting Katherine to be the new queen."

 

Racetrack raised his eyebrows, "Who the heck is Katherine? You been off meetin’ girls while we all been stuck here slavin’ under Pulitzer."

 

"The princess, Princess Katherine" Jack amended. "We wanna get people supportin' the princess."

 

Racetrack scoffed. "Now why d'ya wanna go and do a thing like that? It ain't like she's around here anymore. And I doubt she’s all that different from her father."

 

"Oh yeah?" Jack said, with a challenging smirk.

 

"Oh yeah," Racetrack answered scornfully. "You really tellin' me you know where the princess is?"

 

Jack nodded. "Pulitzer didn't just disappear me. Seems all them rumours about him turning people into animals is true."

 

"You tellin' me he turned you into somethin' and you got a kiss off of the princess to turn you back."

 

Jack smirked. "Davey here helped me find her. She's a smart gal, knows her stuff. And we reckon if we can get enough people wanting her in charge then she might be able to make it so. There’s some complicated magic stuff involved, don’t ask me to ‘splain it."

 

Racetrack grinned. "Jacky boy, you been off with magic princesses and plotting against the king, I don’t reckon it’s gonna need a whole lotta effort to get the guys talkin’ about that. You leave it to me."

 

*

 

 

"You told him that you kissed Katherine," David said, trying to tamp down on a slightly irrational feeling of anger. This wasn’t the first time Jack had said something less than entirely truthful on this trip, and he felt he ought to have become less sensitive to it, yet he could help feeling annoyed. "Do you lie to your friends often?"

 

Jack laughed. "Awww, Dave. I didn't tell him nothin' of the sort, he thought it up himself. I just let him go on thinkin' a wrong idea. Ain’t my job to teach folk to think about stuff, I just sell papes."

 

David sighed. It wasn’t like Jack was technically wrong, just exceedingly aggravating. "Maybe you sold papers before, but you're shaping up to be a revolutionary with what we're planning. You might want to think about that."

 

Jack threw an arm around David. "Well so's you. We're be revoltin' together Dave, remember?"

 

“I remember,” David said, wondering how what was supposed to be a simple day’s walk to find out if any of the neighbouring villages knew a solution to his village’s crop’s sickness had turned into this. Not one of them had used the word treason, but it lurked behind all of their conversations. Sure, the last time Jack had crossed the King he’d been turned into a frog, not killed, but that had been a punishment for defying the king, an attempt to overthrow him would no doubt be received with far worse consequences. And even if it wasn’t David had little inclination in favour of being turned into a frog, and no doubt doomed to living in Les’s pocket to be shown off to the other village children and wondering each day if it would be the day that Les forgot about him and inadvertently squashed him.

 

“Oh don’t look so doom and gloom, Davey,” Jack said. “Katherine’s plan ain’t half bad.”

 

“No, it’s not,” David acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean it’s still not awfully risky. It’s based off of assumptions about how magic works, that we won’t be able to test before we act upon in. Not to mention it hinges an awful lot on-” Suddenly Jack shushed him. “What?” David said, annoyed.

 

Jack shushed him again. “Listen.”

 

David pulled a face, trying to figure out exactly what Jack wanted him to listen to in the chaotic noise of the street but then he heard it.

 

"Extry! Extry! Man saved from curse, thanks Princess Katherine. Read the news in the paper."

 

David raised his eyebrows. "Your friend Racetrack works fast. But how can they have it in the paper already?"

 

Jack grinned. "Keep up Dave, he didn’t say there was anything about Katherine in the paper, just that there was news. Now all the people who don’t buy the paper will be thinking the same thing you did. Race knows the right guys to get a story spreadin'. You keep your ears open and I reckon you'll hear a lot of that."

 

They walked through the city some more, Jack stopping to talk with a few other newsboys before he finally decided that it was time to go and meet Katherine, and during this time Jack’s remarks were quickly proven right. By the time they'd made it to the square David had heard Katherine credited with stopping a flood, saving an orphanage from fire and the ability to fly. He'd wondered what people would think when they opened the papers and found none of those things written there, but Jack had just laughed and said that when the King had forced the newspapers to stop writing about Katherine they'd just started to avoid mentioning her by name, and so now any story that wasn't explicitly about someone else, and a few there were, were open to be attributed to the kingdom's runaway princess.

 

City folk, David decided, were all quite possibly a bit mad.

 

David spotted Katherine working her way through the crowds and waved.

 

"Afternoon," she said. "Did you know that I can turn water to beer and boot leather to pork chops? Because I certainly didn't. I take it you've had a successful morning."

 

"Certainly shaping up like it," Jack said. "And how about you?"

 

Katherine shrugged lightly. "Unfortunately the sort of people I've been dealing with are a little more cautious that those you've been talking to. They're supportive, yes, but most of them aren't willing to do anything about it until they're sure they'll be on the winning side."

 

"You didn't get anybody?"

 

"I got two," she said with a resigned smile. "On the bright side, both of them are heirs to big newspaper companies so they should be a good help. Newspaper men like news, and my father is... well..."

 

"Olds?" Jack suggested.

 

"Yes," Katherine laughed. "He's olds. And the way they see it even if we fail, the attempt will make for at least a few days’ worth of good stories."

 

"So how will they help?" David asked. He knew that magic was vague and complicated, but he didn’t see why all the rest of their plan needed to be.

 

Katherine shrugged. "They've said that they'll try and make it so there's some actual newspaper articles referencing me, so that your friends aren't just making things up completely. After that they said they'd see. I think they're still a little scared to cross my father. It's hard to argue with magic."

 

“Jack did,” David pointed out.

 

“And ended up a frog for his troubles,” Kathrine said. “That’s not what we want. They aren’t wrong. This has to be done right.”  


“C’mon, Dave, you was fine with this plan earlier,” Jack pointed out. “And you’ve been with me all morning, ain’t nothing happened so as to make you change your mind.”

 

David paused. It was true that there was no one thing to explain his sudden hesitancy, but he just didn’t feel at all certain of this plan. That was no use as an answer though, so he sighed and shook his head. “It’s nothing. Never mind, maybe I’m just tired.”

 

Jack raised his eyebrows. “You sleep okay last night? I figured you’d be fine sharin’ what with having your brother an’ all, but if I was keeping you awake-“

 

David cut him off with a shake of his head. “Not you, you were fine Jack,” he reassured. Better than fine actually, Jack might have ended up half on top of him, but it hadn’t been uncomfortable. Les kicked. “It’s been a while, even before we were on the road, what with the crops and the taxes and-“

 

Jack laughed and clapped him on the back. “Ah, too much thinkin’, that’s the problem. Well then no wonder you’re getting strange ideas into your head.”

 

Katherine, who’d been watching them with no little amusement, said, “Perhaps some lunch might help.”

 

Well, it surely wouldn’t hurt.

 

The place the settled themselves in was crowded and noisy, but the soup they were served was hot with a generous portion of meat and David could feel his unease diminishing.

 

Right up until he overheard a snatch of conversation about a rumour that the princess was going to be speaking in the city square that afternoon. His first thought was that this would be a problem for their plans because if people started expecting Katherine to be places and she wasn’t, it would be harder to secure their belief. Then he realised that Katherine and Jack had heard the same thing he had. And he saw the look on their faces.

 

“No!” he exclaimed in a fierce half-whisper.

 

They both looked indignant.

 

“This is exactly what we were after Dave,” Jack pointed out. “What’s the problem?”

 

David ran his hands over his face. “We haven’t planned,” he hissed. “There’s no organisation, no control, no-“

 

Katherine lay a hand on his shoulder. “There’s only so much we can plan for. This is good. Quicker than we expected, but it’s only just gone noon. We have a few hours yet to plan.”

 

David looked between Katherine’s and Jack’s eager faces and knew an impossible battle when he saw one.

 

*

 

 

He cut through a gap, pushing his way to the front of the crowd, David shuffled up to stand beside him. “Ready?” Jack asked, and David was about to ask for a few more minutes but Jack just grinned and let out a piercing whistle, drawing the attention of the crowd towards them.

 

 

 

 

"Hey, but what if she turns out to be just as bad as her father?" somebody in the crowd shouted.

 

"Then we find somebody else to give the power to," David improvised.

 

"Oh yeah? Like who?" somebody else hollered back.

 

"Anyone who wishes to study it," Katherine announced. They’d talked about that over dinner. The power had always been in the hands of the royal family, but Katherine theorised that was more a question of training than an innate gift. She’d already decided that should her takeover attempt be successful, she’d arrange for a more comprehensive study of the mechanics of magic, _(“There are rules to it, but nobody ever takes the time to figure them out and express them clearly so there’s never any better way of finding out if something works than trying and waiting to see what happens, it’s infuriating,”),_ and if it were at all possible encourage more people to study magic, so that the power could be divided up. Her as a central figure in order to route power back into the kingdom as a whole, yes, but also people with specific tasks so that problems could be targeted instead of taking a blanket approach and hoping for the best.

 

Everyone's attention switched from David to her.

 

"You're all uncertain of this because nobody really understands how magic works, not even magic users. That's a ridiculous way of doing things. Once I'm in charge I'll have people begin an investigation into the workings of magic, so that there are other people in reserve who can control it should I ever become incapacitated and so that the outlying villages and farms have fairer access to magic." She took a deep breath and took in the stunned looks. She turned to Jack and David and said, quietly enough that the crowd wouldn't hear, "I don't know what everybody is looking so surprised for. I did have lessons in statecraft growing up, I know how a country should be run."

 

Another voice called up from the crowd. "We ain't had a queen in charge before. We got kings, why we switching things about all of a sudden? I don't like it." There was loud rumble of agreement from the crowd.

 

Katherine shrugged. "Then I'll be king."

 

There was a long pause, while the crowd clearly mulled over this unexpected turn of events, before a voice called out, "Long live King Katherine!"

 

"Long live King Katherine," called another voice, and then another, until the cry filled the square.

 

"King Katherine?" Jack repeated, shooting Katherine a sceptical look.

 

She sighed. "It does sound a little strange, doesn't it? Still, a good leader compromises with the will of the people and it should certainly get people talking about our message. I'll be as good of a king as I would a queen, and it will make things nicely interesting when I get married. Telling them instead of getting kingship they'll have to agree to be my queen will certainly be one way of getting the measure of any suitors."

 

 

They retreated from the crowd. “Should we do it now?” Jack said, “While they’re all worked up?”

 

Katherine shook her head. “We’ll need more people on board than that. They’re a good start, but we need more. I’ve always had some claim to the power, and hardly anybody wants him to have it anymore, but it’s all so nebulous. I think a little more rallying and your and my newspaper friends-,” here she was interrupted by Jack snorting and David couldn’t help but smile at the idea that Katherine was lumping the boys they’d met earlier, hawking papers, with the same men that wrote them.

 

“They’ll both be valuable,” Katherine defended and Jack nodded.

 

“Don’t I know it,” he said. “I’ve always told the guys they’re important because ain’t no good nobody writing newspapers unless there’s somebody sellin’ ‘em as well.”

 

Katherine nodded. “We all know news travels fast in this city,” she said. David nodded, even in only a day he’d realised that was obvious. “I don’t think it should take more than a day or two until everybody’s heard our side, and then we can confront my father.”

 

*********

 

“People are really starting to believe,” Katherine said.

 

Jack raised his eyebrows, “You’ve been outside talking already?”

 

Katherine shook her head. “No, but I can feel it. It – it’s hard to explain, but the power, the country, I could always feel it a little bit, in a distant sort of way, but its closer now, stronger.”

 

Jack caught David’s eye and shrugged. David said nothing. Magic made no sense to him, it seemed like they’d have to just trust Katherine’s assessment, and see how the mood was out on the streets.

 

********

********

 

“Oh no,” Katherine gasped, eyes going wide. “Not yet, we aren’t ready.”

 

“What the hell?” David asked Jack, but his question became redundant as he spotted the armoured men pushing their way through the crowd towards them.

 

He was about to ask how they should proceed when Jack yelled, “RUN!” setting off a panic in the crowd. The volume of the already loud square increased as people grew alarmed at unfolding events, but the square was packed too tightly for people to be able to scatter easily.

 

David grabbed at Jack, in the hopes of not losing him the impending chaos but Jack pushed him away. “You need to go, lose them in the crowd.”

 

David nodded. “I know, come on.” He tugged at Jack’s sleeve but Jack didn’t move. “Jack,” he said, “ _Come on_.”

 

Jack shook his head, pulling his arm out of David’s grasp. “No. Go.”

 

David shook his head. “What? No, come on Jack!”

 

Jack pushed him. “No. You need to go. This isn’t your fight. You gotta get back to your family.”

 

David felt a flash of anger, heat rising in him. How could Jack say it wasn’t David’s fight? If anything he had more reason to be fighting than Jack did, it would be families like his out in the countryside that would starve first if the crops weren’t cured. He opened his mouth to argue again, but Jack was pushing him again and then ducking and weaving through the heaving crowd with the skill of somebody who’d been a city dweller his whole life. David stood no chance at following him.

 

There was no option but to flee. David staggered back through the crowd, grimacing as he saw two guards seize Katherine and drag her from the stage. He could hear yelling from the direction that Jack had headed but didn’t dare to look back. He didn’t have Jack’s familiarity with navigating through crowds and found himself being shoved backwards, tripped up and kicked as he tried to battle his way out. He was the lesser target he knew. Jack had his history with the king and his clear inclination towards insurrection and Katherine was a royal herself. David was nobody, just some newcomer who’d been going about with them and had said a few words at the rally.

 

Things had seemed to be going so well too.

 

He finally escaped the crush of the crowd by stumbling into a narrow alleyway and scrambling over the stacked crates that were blocking it. He stepped out into a street adjacent to the square and leaned again a wall, trying to clear his head enough to think.

 

He couldn’t just go back home to his family, he didn’t even know why Jack would suggest it, it so was absurd. He’d hardly be able to just forget about Katherine and the situation in the city, or about Jack. But he wasn’t sure how to proceed either. He had no place to stay; no money, Katherine had been paying for everything; and he didn’t know anybody beyond the few friends of Jack whose acquaintance he’d briefly made while accompanying Jack on his attempts to rally them to the cause.

 

It was a long shot, but he knew the plan as well as Jack and Katherine did, and all they needed was support. People might doubt them now that Jack and Katherine had been arrested, but if David could convince them that the plan could still work, maybe this could be salvaged. They’d intended to ensure Katherine had the power she needed, and then have her confront the king, but perhaps events didn’t need to occur in quite the ordered they’d intended. David was going to stick to the plan.

 

Jack had mentioned a place he used to stay when they’d first arrived in the city, and more than one his friend had asked him if he’d be coming back to the lodging house when they’d been talking with them, so the first order of business was to find the lodging house.

 

*

 

Getting the location of the lodging house had been surprisingly easy. David had spotted a young man selling newspapers after only a few minutes walking, he come to realise that they were everywhere in the city, and when he’d said that he had a message regarding Jack and the king the boy hadn’t hesitated to give him an address. Finding that address had been a little harder, the city streets seemed to snake around one another, intersecting and forking without any sort of signage, and more than once David had looked at the buildings around him and been certain that he’d walked down the same street already. Still, after about an hour he finally found the street he’d been directed to, scanning the buildings until he spotted the faded sign which read, ‘Newsboys’ lodging house’.

 

The building it indicated was several stories high, shabby looking, with dirty windows and chipped paint on the door. David hesitated, suddenly uncertain. He knew none of these people, nor how they’d react to what he had to say. They’d listened to Jack when he suggested the plan, but Jack was a leader, somebody they knew and trusted and who’d stood up to the king before. Now Jack and Katherine had been taken, proving the plan dangerous and uncertain, and David, who could never hope to conceal his ignorance of city life, was coming to ask them to continue with the plan, to cross the king and his guards and risk imprisonment or worse, in order to pull off a scheme David barely understood and wasn’t even entirely sure was possible.

 

Then again, the alternative was abandoning the city, Katherine, and Jack to the whims of the king.

 

He walked up to the door and knocked.

 

He stood for long enough that what sparks of courage he’d dredged up faded away, and he wondered if he’d been foolish. He’d seen newsboys in the streets, working, and yet here he was assuming that some would also be home. From Jack’s stories the newsboys had to work hard just to keep from starvation, David stepped down off of the step and wondered if he should wait, or go and see out the newsboys and try to talk to them individually.

 

However, just as he did so the door finally creaked open to reveal an elderly man.

 

“Do you want something?” the man asked, looking at David appraisingly.

 

David steeled himself. “I was hoping to pass on a message to the newsboys,” he paused, the continued, “About Jack’s plans.”

 

“Blast that Jack Kelly,” the man grumbled. David tensed, wondering if perhaps he’d stumbled upon somebody loyal to the king, but the man continued by saying, “They’ll get back in an hour or two, do you want to wait in here or out there?”

 

David didn’t particularly want to go into the newsboys lodging house with this stranger, but it seemed foolish to wait outside. “I’ll come in,” he said, and followed the man inside.

 

It wasn’t as grim inside as he’d feared. The windows didn’t let much light in, it was true, but lanterns burned and the place was clean and tidy. The old man pointed to a rickety wooden table, with a few seats around it. “You can wait here,” he said, “There’s plenty of old papes around if you’re bored.”

 

David eyed the chairs with trepidation, wondering if they could actually take his weight. Still, if he was going to be waiting a while it would probably be best to use to opportunity to get some rest.

  
The old man hadn’t lied. There were stacks of papers everywhere, as if the newsboys had nothing better to do with their leftovers than bring them back here. David picked one up and skimmed it, then moved onto another, trying to get an understanding of them. Katherine and Jack both talked about papers as if they were vital to life, but David was less certain. Then again, perhaps that was simply because the first impression he’d gotten of the papers was seeing how they could be manipulated for the right people’s personal agendas.

 

In fact, it only took about forty-five minutes for boys to start trickling into the lodging house, although David recognised none of them from his trips around the city with Jack. The arrivals didn’t speak to David, although several of them stared at him inquisitively, which he wasn’t sure how to respond to. Finally, after watching people arrive for half an hour, David spotted a half familiar face, and after a long moment of staring at him the boy said, “Hey. Ain’t you the guy who were goin’ around with Jack when he was tellin’ people what he was plannin’?”

 

David nodded. “Yes, I…” he bit the inside of his cheek, still unsure of the best way to handle this. “Some of you might have heard there was some trouble at the rally today,” he said.

 

“I’ll say that again,” one of the older newsboys called out. “So much for Jack’s plan, eh? We should all count ourselves lucky we didn’t get dragged down with him.”

 

There were a few murmurs of assent, but David was reassured to see that the majority of the boys seemed displeased by this pronouncement, the boys muttered about how Jack deserved better and how Jack wouldn’t lose so easily gave him the courage to say, “The plan isn’t over.”

 

There was a moment of silence, and then a flurry of noise as the boys began calling out questions and comments.

 

“Garbage!”

 

“How’s Jack supposed to do anythin’ from a cell?”

 

“Should never have trusted that princess. Royalty - they’re all the same.”

 

“It’s just like last time.”

 

“We ain’t getting’ ‘rrested too.”

 

David stood up, waiting from the group to calm down, but there seemed to be no end of it, as those who were still willing to trust in there being a plan clashed with those who claimed to have been sceptical from the start, escalated the situation further.

 

He tried to speak, but quickly realised that even those standing close enough to hear him over the din weren’t interested in listening. He looked at the crowd and spotted the first guy Jack had taken them to see, who was arguing in defence of Jack, but also seemed somewhat dubious about the plan, meaning that he’d found himself arguing against both sides.

 

“Hey, hey!” David grabbed the guy’s sleeve.

 

The guy turned to David and immediately yanked his arm away. “What?” he snapped.

 

David mentally cast back to their meeting, trying to remember his name. Jack had called him Race, which didn’t sound like much of a name, but it was the best David had. “Race!” he said. “You know Jack didn’t explain the whole plan. You need to help me get people to listen, so I can tell everyone.”

 

Racetrack looked uncertain and David sighed. “It’s not good,” he admitted, “Jack is in trouble. But we can fix this if we keep going, but I need your help.”

 

Racetrack frowned. “Only ‘cause it’s Jack,” he said, and he jumped up onto a chair and gave a piercing whistle.

 

The room didn’t fall silent, but the racket subsided as people stopped arguing with each other in favour of covering their ears and yelling at Racetrack. “Alright you ‘orrible lot,” Racetrack hollered. “Jack ‘ad a plan, and Jack’s our pal, so the leasts we can do is listen while,” he glanced down at David, “You got a name?”

 

“David,” David supplied.

 

Race turned back to his audience, “You’re gonna listen while David here explains what Jack’s plan is, and then you can all go back to smacking each other over if you agree or not.” He jumped down off of the chair and gestured for David to take his place. At home his mother would have been mad at David for standing on furniture, and even angrier at the idea he thought it was okay to stand on somebody else’s furniture, but David wasn’t at home now, so he followed Racetrack’s lead and stepped up onto the chair.

 

There were advantages and disadvantages to his position. On the positive side, he could see his whole audience, and the extra height made them pay attention to him. Unfortunately, he could see his whole audience and the extra height meant he had their attention.

 

He swallowed, but he figured he only had a few minutes before the effect of Racetrack’s yelling wore off, so he needed to talk fast.

 

 

********

********

 

Although there was no visible sign of their battle, David thought that he could sense the power coursing through the air and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

 

 

The light in the room seemed to be acting strange. At first he'd assumed it was a shift in the light outside, the sun coming out from behind a cloud and more of its light coming in through the windows. Now he could see that the source of the strange light was in the room. An unnerving glow was coming from the air around Katherine and the king. David wanted to assume that this was fine and normal for magic users and that was why Katherine and Pulitzer were ignoring it, but he had a distressing feeling that they might not even have noticed it, they were arguing so fiercely. They'd moved on from matters of state now and were arguing about Katherine's mother and her childhood. For all that David had known that Katherine was Pulitzer's daughter he'd never given it much consideration before now. But now he realised that they had lived with one another for years before Katherine had wound up in the forest, that Katherine must have learned so much of her magic from him because it wasn't as if there were a whole lot of magic users out there. For the first time David considered the fact that Katherine was here to challenge her father - there was far more to this for her than politics and kingship. David had hoped from the start that Pulitzer would back down once he realised how much support they had but now he willed it more than ever, not just for convenience's sake but for Katherine's.

 

The glow was a bright gold now, sparking at the edges and it looked like Pulitzer had finally noticed it because his eyes widened for a moment and then he scowled and yelled, "The power is mine!" For a moment the glow seemed to flow towards him but then it ebbed back to the centre.

 

"I'd rather not take it by force," Katherine said, "But it's no longer yours."

 

"It doesn’t matter what trickery you’ve managed,” Pulitzer declared, “I am King!”

 

 

"You also have many enemies," David pointed out, "Both in the kingdom and outside of it. If you're trying to beat Katherine you won't be able to hold them off, but if you admit we've won you'll get put in a nice safe prison cell, with all the people who want worse for you kept away."

 

 

 

 

David watched Jack staring down the king and wondered if Katherine had been wholly fair in saying that their part of this plan was easy. Of course he didn't understand the technicalities of working magic, but

 

"You might have found a way around my curse last time," declared the sorcerer, "But you won't break this." David tensed as the wizard raised a hand and brought it down sharply, but nothing happened.

 

Jack grinned.

 

 

 

 

 

"H-how?!" Pulitzer spluttered, still frantically gesturing in a way that David could only assume was an attempt at magic.

 

Jack nodded towards the window. “Look outside.”

 

Pulitzer hesitated and then edged sideways towards the window, never turning his back on them, as if he expected an attack.

 

"The people might not be able to keep the power for themselves, but they can certainly direct it," Katherine declared, and they’re directing it to me.

 

 

 

 

**********

**********

 

 

 

 

Jack was embracing a young man leaning on a crutch, David felt pretty confident without needing to ask that this was Crutchy, he turned away, not wanting to interrupt the reunion.

 

After a few moments Crutchy looked up from the hug and waved at the rest of the room with a grin. David could already see why Jack liked him.

 

 

“Is this newsboy to be your consort?” the courtier asked, and David choked on his drink.

 

Katherine and Jack looked over at each other, their gaze holding for one long stomach churning moment before Katherine began to laugh.

 

"Hey," Jack cried. "It ain't that funny of an idea."

 

"Oh... I'm sorry Jack," Katherine gasped as her laughter died down. "It's just... you and I? Really?"

 

"No," said Jack, wryly, shooting a grin in David’s direction, "I guess not."

 

“Anyway, I’ve got a country to run.”

 

*

 

 

 

Jack: "Wait, what about what's going on with the crops?"

 

David had been so caught up in their plan he'd forgotten about that, he immediately felt guilty.

 

"The crops?" Katherine asked.

 

"They're dying, everywhere," David explained. "But not by any cause that anybody knows."

 

Katherine frowned. "Perhaps my father was doing an even poorer job as king than I realised. The monarch draws power from the people, I already explained that, but you're supposed to use the power for the kingdom, not just in battles but as general background magic, reducing the risk of disease and encouraging the crops. If there's no obvious reason that they're dying, it might be that he was keeping the power meant to protect the crops, for himself."

 

*******

 

 

 

 

When the others had left David turned to Jack with concern. ""Are you... I would have thought you'd be more upset about Katherine turning down the idea of marrying you."

 

"Nah," said Jack, and to David’s surprise he looked like he meant it. "I mean, she's a corker, but I ain't in love with her or anythin'. And I wouldn't want to be king neither.” He laughed, “Or rather, queen, seeing as she’s already taken being king for herself."

 

"But you were so determined to kiss her... I thought you..."

 

Jack cut him off. "Nah. All I knew about her was that folk said she might be able to get me back human. I mean I ain't saying that I wouldn't have liked a kiss from her..."

 

David flushed. "Well, I'm sorry you missed out on the opportunity."

 

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. "I don’t mind. Anyhow, you're the one who gonna have to say a frog if anybody asks who the last person you kissed was..." Jack said, "You should probably do somethin’ about that."

 

David shrugged. "I suppose, but I'd have to find somebody who wanted to kiss me..."

 

"Yeah well, I'm sure there's someone, I mean it ain't exactly an awful favour for you to ask."

 

David bit his lip and watched Jack's gaze flicker down from his eyes to his mouth and then dart back up again. "You could say that you owe me a favour,” David observed. “I mean you might still be a frog if it weren’t for me."

 

Jack raised his eyebrows. “You askin’?”

 

David steeled himself, looking up into Jack’s eyes. “I’m asking.”

 

As Jack leaned close he closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of Jack's lips, warm this time, and curved upwards into a smile as they pressed against David’s.

 

 

*******

 

 

"You're coming with me?" David asked.

 

"Unless you want me to stay here,” Jack said, with a shrug. “But it’s like I told ya, this city is too crowded for a fella to really live. There’s space in the country and I figure I could do alright at farming.”

 

"Space and not much else," David protested. "I think you'd change your mind once you're actually living there. You'll get bored."

 

Jack shrugged. "Well maybe I will, and maybe I won’t. But it ain't that far of a walk to the city if I wanted to make a visit. Hell, if everything Katherine’s plannin’ comes true there’ll be wagons rolling up and down those roads every day that I could hop on. If you’re talkin’ of bored, I reckon Les’d appreciated comin’ here and seein’ some excitement more than anyone else I know. And I reckon your sister oughtta meet Katherine. The world starts gettin’ itself back to right and who says any of us has to choose. I just reckon it’d be nice sleepin’ out where you can see the stars, then here under all this smoke."

 

David paused, weighing up the merits of pointing out that even in the country what you tended to see while falling asleep was, like everywhere else, a ceiling. But that wasn’t the point really. Jack could find himself a patch of countryside anywhere, what they were really talking about was Jack coming back to David’s little village. His family had clearly adored Jack, even in the form of a frog, and wouldn’t hesitate to welcome him into their lives. And Jack seemed to genuinely want to stay – who was David to doubt him.

 

“I hope you realise that this time you’ll have to do all the walking yourself, instead of having me carry you,” David said, “But alright.”

 

"Good,” Jack said, slinging an arm around him. “Cause someone’s gotta tell you're folks what happened, and you’se an alright talker Dave, but I reckon I’m better when it comes to tellin’ stories."

 

David groaned. Les would never forgive him when he heard what he'd missed out on.


End file.
